Friday, January 03, 2003

"We have a good dialogue with the United States on all
levels characterized by respect," [Syrian] Minister of Information Adnan Omran
said in an interview on Monday. "We can reach understandings and ease
difficulties."

A Bush administration official involved in Middle East policy
essentially agreed, saying, "The Syrians are highly opportunistic and
pragmatic, which is why we can work with them." ...

The two countries are still in dispute over Syria's prolonged
intervention in Lebanon, stubborn hostility toward Israel and the
wide-ranging support for Hamas and Hezbollah militants that keeps
Damascus on the State Department terrorist black list. Mob attacks
against the American Embassy here in 1998 and 2000 opened new wounds,
which have been salted by Syria's opening of its borders to Iraqi oil
exports in violation of the United Nations-sanctioned embargo. ...

Syria denies breaking the United Nations embargo on Iraq, but
Western diplomats and independent oil experts say the country imports
about 200,000 barrels of Iraqi oil a day for its domestic use, freeing
its own oil production for export. Western diplomats estimate that
total trade with Iraq earns the Syrian government $500 million a year,
or 10 percent of its annual revenues. ...

As a member of the United Nations Security Council, Syria voted
two months ago in favor of a resolution calling for Iraq to account
for all weapons of mass destruction, a vote viewed positively in
Washington as a tacit nod in favor of tightening the screws on
Baghdad. But since that vote, Syria has tilted its diplomacy back in
favor of Saddam Hussein to avert war.

During a state visit to Algeria last weekend, President Assad
declared that Iraq had complied with the United Nations resolution and
had proved it did not have weapons of mass destruction. "We see the
United States administration's insistence on fabricating an excuse to
launch a war against the brotherly people of Iraq," he said.

What balances against this record, apparently, is Syrian
cooperation in rounding up al-Qaeda suspects (no surprise there;
al-Qaeda hates the relatively secular Syrian regime, and is no doubt
doing what they can to undermine it), and their alleged efforts to
"restrain" Hezbollah, the openly declared terrorist group which they
continue to sponsor. In short, the Republicans are once again cozying
up to a vicious dictator because their interests temporarily align
with his, just like they did with Saddam Hussein in the '80s. You'd
think they'd have learned their lesson by now.

But it would be unfair to paint that as the only Republican
response to vicious dictators. They have another: pointless posturing
which begs for a conflict, and usually gets it. Witness their
strategy for dealing with North Korea, to which, as Paul
Krugman points out, building a bomb is actually a rational
response, and it's hard to think of another. As Josh Marshall puts it:

You only get to seem tough and principled and Churchillian
if you draw a line in the sand and then have something to follow it up
with. You only get credit for pointing out what everyone already knew
-- that the 1994 agreement was an imperfect one and perhaps only a
stopgap -- if you've got something better. If you don't, you just look
like a fool.